


made no preparation (for my reputation)

by FoxGlade



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Meet-Cute, Pre-Canon, for a loose definition of 'cute'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 08:46:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12272946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FoxGlade/pseuds/FoxGlade
Summary: The first time Davenport meets the cleric Merle Highchurch, it is... less than auspicious.





	made no preparation (for my reputation)

**Author's Note:**

> i've been caught between "working a full-time office job like a Real Adult" and "writing seven different taz fics", but i heard it was davenport week and would never have forgiven myself for not putting something up for it lmao
> 
> this was initially a headcanon that i gave to nellie so? you're to blame i guess. (shena for once was not involved)
> 
> title from Some Might Say by Oasis

The first time Davenport meets the cleric Merle Highchurch, it is... less than auspicious.

He's heard vaguely about him. Highchurch joined the Institute with a batch of others during a period of expansion. More courses being added, more fields of study accepted under the banner of 'Planar Research'. It's not something Davenport pays much attention to. He's firmly in the 'Exploration' track of the IPRE, and only concerned with R&D rather than teaching, but even so.

"I thought someone was vaping in the new greenhouses," one of his colleagues says over mediocre cafeteria lunch. "New students, maybe. I dunno, it was all clouded up. Anyway, it was just Highchurch doing hot yoga with the Roma Fly Traps."

"What's hot yoga?" Davenport asks. Then, "No, wait, don't explain it. Please don't."

That's the general tone of the bits and pieces he hears. Highchurch set fast-growing plants on his class, inciting campus-wide panic. Highchurch instigated a Pan Bible Study Group in the middle of the quad, which quickly devolved into some sort of sex cult (thankfully, after Highchurch himself had left). Highchurch's office is inaccessible due to his door being overgrown with moss, but bad country music still blares from the windows constantly.

He's an enigma, and not one Davenport is particularly interested in investigating.

And even if he did, he doesn’t have the time. He’s working sixteen hour days, running back and forth across the engineering labs or shut up in his office writing papers constantly.

Which he is now, at the time of the auspicious meeting.

The first he hears is a loud rustling outside his window. He pauses with his fingers over the typewriter keys. Nothing moves outside – his office is high up enough that it clears the tops of the trees in the quad. It’s just the Cultural Studies building in the distance and the purple sky beyond.

He goes back to typing.

There, again! He starts at the loud rustling, hands spasming over the keys and turning a citation for _Troutleap & Troutleap_ into _Troutleap & Troutlasjdg. _Great. That’s what he gets for using outdated technology, probably. He rips the paper out of the machine with more force than necessary and storms over to the window, throwing it open dramatically.

Or attempting to. It’s been a long time since he actually opened the window, so it involves more struggling and tugging at the handles than drama demands. Finally it cracks open enough for him to stick his head outside.

Nothing. Most of the other windows on his level are closed, too, no one leaning out to fuss with the ivy growing on the brick sides of the building or do some routine academia-induced screaming.

He's about to give up and go back to his typewriter when there's another rustle. It's coming from directly above him, and when he looks up, he instantly has to squint against the leaves that fall in his face.

"What," he says, mostly to himself.

"Don't worry about it!" a cheerful voice answers. Davenport squints harder.

There's someone climbing the ivy running up the brick walls, leaning over and messing with something on the windowsill above Davenport's. Stealing something? The stranger picks something up in one hand, hard to see through the harsh light of midday.

He leans as far out of the window as possible and yells, "Hey! Get down!"

"I said don't worry about it," the voice repeats. It's a crunchy kind of voice, which is the weirdest possible descriptive word, but surprisingly accurate. "I just gotta – _shit._ "

More rustling, a worrying crumbling noise, and then the figure is falling. Automatically Davenport lunges forward to grab at whatever he can, bringing them to a halt and finally giving him a proper look.

The arm he's gripping in one hand is dark and covered in tiny scars and dirt. The shirt he has the other hand fisted in is made of a soft, woven fabric, and looks hand-made, which matches the rest of the person – a dwarf with taped-up spectacles and dirt over their face, looking cheerful behind their ruffled beard, despite their precarious position over the quad.

"Whew, nice strength save," they say, smiling sunnily. Davenport blinks a few times. "Gonna let me in, or do I gotta get an appointment?"

He blinks a few more times, then hauls the dwarf back into his office by the arm and the shirt.

"Merle Highchurch," the dwarf continues. "Botany department, head of the terra-forming project."

"And of climbing the Applied Physics building?" Davenport asks. He probably should've guessed this was Highchurch the second he had to save him from an unpleasant end on the quad below. "What were you doing?"

Highchurch just gives a conspiratory grin and leans in a little. Davenport leans back. "Rescue mission," Highchurch says. "You know anything about the guy in the office above you?"

"Wh—no, I don't know," Davenport says. "Did something happen? I didn't hear any alarms..."

"No, nothing wrong," Highchurch says, "nothing except the capture and slow torture of three violets."

That takes a second to sink in. "Violets... as in, flowers," Davenport says slowly. Highchurch nods. "You were stealing plants?"

"Rescuing!" Highchurch insists. "Whoever was keeping them clearly doesn't have the knowledge or competence to keep them alive, so I'm pretty it's only logical that I should take them off his hands."

Every second of Highchurch speaking is another layer of bizzare-ness that Davenport isn't quite equipped to handle. "So, logically, you had to climb the side of the building and steal three flowerpots off a windowsill on the fourth floor," Davenport says. "And going inside to knock on the door and ask if you could take the flowers would be... illogical."

"Well, my keycard doesn't have access to the elevators in this building," Highchurch points out, the height of reason. "Besides, what if they said no? Then I'd have to climb the building anyway."

"Right," Davenport says. He pinches the bridge of his nose. "Right, yes, of course, I see it now."

"Knew you'd come around," Highchurch says. "You got a name? Or do you wanna tell me over lunch?"

"No," Davenport says, hopefully not sounding as hysterical as he feels. "I mean, I have a name, but no lunch, I'm writing a paper, and also, you were definitely just breaking a campus law. Some sort of law. A moral law, at least."

Highchurch’s grin drops slightly, turning into something softer. “Well, I follow moral law of Pan, and that law says all life is to be valued,” he says. “No matter how small or inaccessible.”

With that, he heads for the door. Davenport’s head is still spinning from the sudden mood whiplash, but he gathers himself quick enough to grab Highchurch by the shoulder.

“I’m Davenport,” he blurts out. “I won’t have lunch with you, because I really do have to finish this paper, but if you need someone to buzz you in, so you can steal more plants. Just ask the front desk to call my office. Please don’t climb the building again. I will call security next time.”

Highchurch – Merle – beams at him. “Aw, the security guys know me already,” he says cheerfully. “But thanks. I’ll bring some plants to liven this place up.”

“Please don’t, you’d just have to rescue them again.” His hand is still on Merle’s shoulder. He snatches it back.

Merle just keeps beaming. “Guess so,” he says. “I gotta go find that plant I dropped. See you round, Dav.”

He strolls out of the office with a jaunty whistle, leaving Davenport to lean on his desk and wonder what just happened.

Well, he thinks as he straightens some papers on the desk, at least he knows now that the stories about Merle weren’t exaggerated in the slightest. Even if they never seemed to mention that he actually has quite a nice smile.

That thought gives him a moment’s pause, but he brushes it off. After all, they’re probably never going to see each other again, plant rescues notwithstanding. And definitely not for any long period of time, unless there’s some sort of staff camping trip. Which, actually, sounds like exactly the sort of thing Merle would organise.

Davenport puts that train of thought into the stations and sits back down. Merle Highchurch has already interrupted his day enough as it is.


End file.
